Wednesday, April 13, 2016

A Last Word

Some of you know I lost my husband just a few weeks ago, on February 29. The next day I looked back and said, "That's the lowest point in my life," and, with the help of family and friends, I kept moving. It has been hard, it has been painful, but there was a light in my tunnel--distant, dim, flickering--but a light.I continued my blog and my FB page, because it filled 3 or 4 hours in my suddenly empty days; it forced me to focus.Yesterday, I found out that I am not eligible for my husband's full monthly police officer's retirement benefit. I've been broke before--who hasn't--but there was always a way out and around it..a tweek here, a month of peanut butter and ramen there, skipping an outing to save gas, a minimum payment on a bill, you know the drill. But this gap is too big to fill with a tweek or ramen, and it is permanent with no way out.With the full retirement coming in, I could have survived. I wasn't going to have a new car or travel, but I could pay my bills, take care of my dogs, and buy groceries. With the greatly reduced amount, I will be losing everything: my home, the trappings of 32 years of marriage, my life as a human being.Emotionally bereft, financially bankrupt, I just can't work up any real outrage at our political leaders, so I'm closing down my blog and my FB page.I thank everyone who has followed and commented and posted. Please, keep fighting.